Saturday, August 3, 2013

Mumbai : Survivor City

Met these wonderful people in the meat, fruit and vegetable market in Florence. The lady runs a popular stall with the best mozarella I have ever eaten! And that's her father looking after her two year old daughter while she works. Women are just so fabulous!
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This appeared in Mumbai Mirror today.....

Mumbai : Survivor
City

I am not a mushy person. But Mumbai makes
me mushy. Unashamedly so. I wish I could provide an apt translation for the
word ‘mushy’ in Marathi / Telegu / Hindi / Punjabi / Bengali / Tamil / Gujarati
etc. etc. But that would just kill this delicate emotion called love. That’s
the funny thing about language – any language. It has its own rhythm , it’s own
specificity and its own terrible beauty.
You use and interpret it at your own peril. As I discovered last week.
Without revisiting the aftermath of what followed my innocuous tweet, one thing
I did realize very swiftly: Mumbai arouses deep and abiding passions. Nobody
can remain indifferent to this gloriously insane city. Mumbai touches the life
of anyone and everyone who has been lucky enough to live here – even briefly.
Mumbai transforms you in a way that few other cities do. It is a magnet and a
serpent. It can save and destroy. Nurture and reject. Caress or bite. Mumbai is
Mumbai. Unique, arrogant but also enormously, almost ridiculously
compassionate.

And nobody owns Mumbai.

Nobody can.

So, it’s a bit silly for anybody to get
proprietorial and possessive about Mumbai. Mumbai is her own woman. Fierce ,
strong, indestructible and proud. Any attempt to capture her, can only lead to
frustration for the captors. This is what makes Mumbai so desirable, so
seductive. Mumbai is unambiguously today. There is her riotously colourful past
. And there will be an unpredictable but exciting future. But it is in the
present that Mumbai lives, breathes and thrives. And when that present is
violated, Mumbai bleeds and cries. It has happened during innumerable attacks
on her in the past. Terrorists have ripped her apart, limb by limb. But she has
always managed to pick herself up and walk again – head held high. No crutches.
No subsidies. No help. Mumbai is the Ultimate Survivor. Which is another reason
why Mumbai attracts real life survivors from across India. They come to her to
heal, learn, get up and get on. Most prosper beyond their wildest dreams. Those
who don’t, still love her. They don’t blame Mumbai for their failure, they
blame themselves. Yes, Mumbai can be harsh and unforgiving. No, Mumbai is not
for losers.More importantly, Mumbai is not for opportunists, either. Try and
exploit her goodness and see what happens. Try and cheat Mumbai of her dues,
and she in turn, will rebuff and crush you.

Unfortunately, we are recklessly testing
Mumbai’s vast reserve of patience. We are foolishly taunting her tolerance. We are challenging her supreme
position. And we are hoping Mumbai will overlook our crassness, our uncouth
behavior, our insults and abuse. We are hoping that Mumbai will not notice the
brash and aggressive attempts to grab every inch of her and sell it bit by bit
to the highest bidder.

Mumbai is the heart beat of Maharashtra.
But she is on life support systems right now. Mumbai is in the ICU with nobody
really looking after her rapidly deteriorating condition. There is organ
failure. And worse. Mumbai may die of a broken heart, unable to cope with the
abject neglect and indifference displayed towards her by those who claim to
love her. Those who want to possess her. Those who falsely believe Mumbai
belongs exclusively to them and them alone.

Mumbai is like our ailing, unselfish
mother, who refuses to complain or demand help. We can either ignore her
desperate state. Or do something to save her. By behaving like passive
bystanders waiting for the heart monitor to give us the bad news, we are as
guilty as those negligent doctors refusing her a blood transfusion when she
needs it the most. The same heartless lot who is prepared to make money out of systematically selling each of her organs from the cadaver.

It is time to tell them to leave Mumbai
alone.Our Mumbai is not for sale.

Hello Shobha looking gorgeous as always in all your pix in your previous blogs. At the beginning your Mumbai sounded like an incarnation of "Tsen Spirit" that are of course known to have high level of self preservation, and brave. Legend has it that they can even detect someone by the smell of his or her urinary!!! But I'm dissipointed how she ended towards the end! May she get well soon!!! Tinggggg :) Lots of love to ya!

i was surprised and shocked of the reaction with regard to your tweet...I don't live in Mumbai but I have known you through your books,blog,interviews etc and I know how much you love your city,no way you will do anything which will in anyway harm your beloved city...I don't care about what others thought of your tweet but I know one thing for sure you love Mumbai...iam with you!

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